Chapter Thirty-Two
Carson
Easter at the Harper house was… a lot.
Not bad. It wasn’t overwhelming in the way I’d feared. Just full. Big. Loud in all the corners where my life had grown quiet. Warm in ways I hadn’t prepared for.
Dinner had been a circus of ham, red potatoes, grilled sausages, rolls that Fifi kept burning and remaking, four different kinds of salad because no one could agree on a dressing, Louie the goat escaping his pentwice, and Violet casually interrogating me like the FBI had hired her.
But the strangest part wasn’t them.
It was how much I liked it.
How much the chaos reminded me of the last Easter I’d spent with my parents, with the crowded kitchen, mismatched plates, my dad insisting on lighting candles, and my mom laughing at how dramatic he was. I hadn’t realized how vivid that memory still was, how close to the surface it sat.
And being in the Harper house tonight felt like brushing against a bruise I hadn’t known I still carried.
But the bruise didn’t hurt.
It ached more softly now.
After dessert, ranging from pie, pudding, brownies, to something Violet called cloud fluff that looked like whipped sugar and tasted like a sugar coma, people started drifting out of the dining room in ones and twos.
Violet filmed a video tutorial on how to fold napkins into bunny shapes for her website. Fifi tried to glue a fake flower crown toBen’s head.
And Sienna?
She kept glancing toward the back door.
The air between us had been taut all day. It wasn’t strained, just stretched. Every time she looked at me, it felt like something unspoken hovered between us, something that had been waiting since the tent and the lake and every charged moment after.
When she finally slipped outside, quiet, and quick, I didn’t even hesitate.
I followed.
The night air was cool, carrying the smell of damp pine needles and melted snow. Spring came differently here…slow and stubborn, but hopeful. A few early frogs croaked near the marshy end of the yard.
She walked toward the edge of the property, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, shoulders slightly hunched as though she didn’t know what to do with her own tension.
I caught up beside her. “You okay?”
She startled with a laugh and gave a quick, embarrassed smile.
“Yeah. Just… getting air.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
We fell into step along the gravel path that wound behind the lodge toward the woods. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable but full.
After a minute, I said, “The Butterfields left quite the review.”
Her head snapped up. “I guess they fell for it.”
Her expression shifted from pride to panic to annoyance all at once.
“Maybe it wasn’t much of an act.” My brows lifted.
“We’re professionals,” she corrected, waving her hands.
